A few weeks back there was a Doonsbury comic strip where the punch line included the fun of having tinnitus. (There's a link in one of my blog entries somewhere.)
Well this week, the great comic ZITS (one of the best drawn strips, too) is doing a series on ear worms. Check it out:
Made me laugh out loud. And I particularly like that's it's a single panel, and rather than spelling out what song is stuck in Dad's head, instead one has to be familiar with the Beatles' Yellow Submarine cartoon to get the gag.
The next strip encourages Dad to sing the song that is stuck, and naturally he bellows the all too familiar "We all live in a yellow submarine..." chorus, much to the chagrin of his son Jeremy, who is afraid the ear worm could be infectious.
C'mon everyone! "We all live..."
The rest of the series is equally amusing and rings true to what is generally true for folks suffering from earworms.
And Yellow Submarine is an inspired, yet perfect choice for the earworm. Who hasn't had that chorus spinning around in their noggin' at one point or another?
(From memory) No Reply. Side One. First Song. Time: 2:19
Given my almost fanatical devotion to the lads from Liverpool, it's probably no surprise that their tunes often wind up being my earworm-de jour. Although, at least since my hearing loss and the daily visit from ol' Maestro Earworm, Yellow Submarine itself hasn't been infused in my skull; though I have no doubt it will be at some point. Why Don't We Do It in the Road and No Reply have each made at least a few appearances. And at least twice the lines "block that kick, block that kick" and "you, you become naked" from Revolution 9 played some havoc with me.
But generally, when it's the Fabs' inhabiting my earworm-hole, I almost don't hear them at all. I just know the songs so well, I guess, that even when the earworm needle wants to stick on Lennon's singing "…but it's my pride. Yes it is, yes it is, oh yes it is, yea", as it did this morning, something inside of my brain bumps the needle, allowing the three-point-harmony of the lads' to continue singing, "Please don't wear red to-night…" and I essentially get the full tune.
Of course the song is set on repeat, it is an earworm after all, but, as I said, I hardly notice it.
At least in comparison to my usual regime. "And what's more, it's true. Yes it is."
For several nights, the earworm-at-night DJ has been spinning phrases and snippets from various songs from the classic Squeeze album, Argybargy. One night it was the repetition of the line "Two fat ladies window shop, something for the mantel piece" from their song Pulling Muscles From a Shell; another featured the single-note guitar solo from If I Didn't Love You (a solo I not only love, but can almost play); while another was the bass vocalizations of Chris Difford singing "Liquor stores and rodeos, PIX and Rock and Roll" from I Think I'm Go-Go.
Great album, great tunes and not particularly surprising that they visited as I have recently listened to the great Argybargy, an album that instantly takes me to the Jersey shore (what the rest of the country erroneously refers to as the beach).
(The beach my friends and I would go to when we went "down the shore.")
(This was known as a "cassette tape" back in the day.)
My friends and I worked many hours putting together the absolutely perfect mix-tape to be blared at the shore. Designed specifically to lure non-suspecting, bathing suit clad young ladies, who normally wouldn't give us the time of day. But, because of the seducing guitar work by Dave Edmunds and the romantic lyrics from The Specials, these young ladies would not be able to control themselves and would, with the crooning of Graham Parker, become putty in our (oh so) sweaty hands.
Devious, I know.
Didn't work.
But, and this is crucial, when, emanating from our portable stereo cassette/radio boom box was Squeeze's Another Nail
in My Heart, not one, but two (2!) pretty young ladies said, "I like that song," as they walked past.
(Sigh.)
While Squeeze had been the earworm-of-the-night band for several nights, last night I was instead visited by the opening riff from a Yes song. While I like Yes, few of their songs work as beach music. (Maybe Gates of Delirium from Relayer-- A joke for Yes fans), I'm sure learning what tunes-of-old proved irresistible to women of the opposite sex was more interesting reading than whatever I'd have to say about Yes. I will say that last night I had to compel myself to "hear" what came after that riff in order to remember what the devil song it came from. All that work actually tired me out and I was soon back in la-la land.
But never fear, the riff was there, front and center, when I woke this morning.
For awhile now, I've been pondering the fact that we are in an age where purchasing an entire album from any given artist is becoming unusual, and the norm is simply downloading the "hit" single. First of all, how does one even know what the "hit" single is, especially with radio becoming more and more insignificant? I assume that the Billboard rankings are determined by the number of downloads a song has (I assume they are just counting legal downloads), but when artist X releases their album, without a DJ, VJ or whoever spinning a certain track, how does the single-buying public know which is the good tune? And, for we fans of the LP (or CD for the middle-agers out there), what becomes of all the other songs that make up the album? Since only the single is downloaded, why even put out an album at all?
Back in the day, when one actually purchased a single--an actual 45 rpm disc, for your money you got not only the "hit" song, the A-side, but you also got a bonus song, the B-side. Often it was another cut from the album in which the A-side came from. If so, the B-side could give insight to what one could expected from the rest of the album, allowing one to see if the album is worth buying. But sometimes the song on the B-side was unique to the single. Often considered "throwaways," these one-shot B-Side tunes were what the obsessive collector lived for. Including yours truly.
(Come On was the flip-side of Joe Jackson's It's Different For Girls.
A live track, Jackson's cover of Come On rocked and was in heavy rotation for my friends and me.)
In the beginning of the CD transition, many of the reissues of back catalogues consisted solely of the tracks contained on the original LP release. It wasn't until the reissue of the CD (which, remember, was itself a reissue of the LP) where, in an effort to entice the record/CD buying public to purchase said album yet again, the "new" CD would come with "bonus tracks," which, often, were those "throwaway" B-sides we obsessive collectors salivated over. Some artists continued to release CD singles, which included an extra song or two, the CD version of the B-side. Pearl Jam, Oasis, U2, to name a few, kept the avid collector gene alive.
(Dylan's Biograph was among the first Box Sets and had a handful of unreleased tracks making it a must have.)
But generally the reissue CD, and to an even greater extent, the advent of the Box Set [which often not only includes B-sides but also the holy grail of holy grails to fanatic music collectors…unreleased tracks(!)] turns out to be something of a double-edged sword.Yes, it makes collecting a particular artist's entire catalog amazingly easy; but there in lies the rub.The thrill of the chase is gone.
Used to be, when one was in a new area, vacationing or business perhaps, checking out the local record stores, (independent if possible, but if Sam Goody was the only place in town, that would do, too) was high on the list of important things to do. Heck, the opportunity to visit a new independent record store made the trip to finally visit Aunt Millie (warm powdered lemonade, wet kisses and all) something to look forward to. Why? Because you never knew what you were going to find! Who knows, maybe they have that illusive 45 of Zeppelin's Immigrant Song, the single with their only non-album track, Hey Hey, What Can I Do on the flip side. (Which now, of course, can be downloaded from iTunes with a single click.)
Hey, hey what could I do?
Sure, true collectors still want the actual physical 45, but the reason for the search to begin with, owning and listening to the rare Led Zeppelin song, is now nothing special. Back in the day, your cachet in High School would be raised exponentially, even with the girls(!), if you had the 45 of Immigrant Song, which I did not, alas. (That cachet inflation, particularly from the girls, didn't apply to having a copy of The Beatles' Lady Madonna, which had the illusive The Inner Light as it's B-side. That one I did have.)
But now, if one so desires, B-sides and "rarities" can be had with a click. With the download generation, B-sides and "rarities" pretty much become things of the past. And with the pattern being the downloading of specific songs rather than entire albums, maybe the album itself is becoming a thing of the past.
But who knows?
Growing up, my friends and I spent countless hours listening to music together, albums and singles. When one of us scored one of those elusive B-sides, that would be a cause for celebration 'and much rejoicing' ("yea" -- A Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference we also shared).
One such flip side, which we listened to quite a bit, was from the band The Police. Guitarist Andy Summers often had his--shall we say, unusual--songs relegated to the B-side, and that was the case with his song Friends, the flip side of Don't Stand So Close Yo Me.
It's from Friends that today's earworm comes. While the song has been driving me a bit batty, it also has me thinking back to the good ol' days, goofing around with my pals, talking about girls (postulating ways to raise our cache with them, even just an iota), and listening to tunes. As Yoda might say, "Miss that, I do."
What can I say, "I love to eat my friends and make no bones about it…"
Funny, no? Accurate, too. Tinnitus does, indeed, kick my ass. Often.
Nothing more to add. Except that I wouldn't wish tinnitus on my worst enemy.
(Palet Cleanser. Oh, and the music is at a proper volume.)
Okay, so now the good news, especially for you constant readers. 'Member a few posts back when I couldn't figure out what song my bugging' earworm was from? The one where a young woman keeps singing/saying "if ya wanna"? Well, guess who finally figured it out? Ah, go ahead, I'll give you three tries.
Gotta it in one! You smarty pants, you.
Yes!, I figured out where that confounded "if ya wanna" comes from. My original post was right in that it is a female pop star. While I've heard of her, I thought she was a child actress, which turns out to be true. She was. But apparently, she was also a pop star. Exactly where and when I heard her song is anyone's guess. But, after finally finding it, I'll admit, I kinda like it, in a teenybopper-female-singing-pop-song kinda way, of course. In any event, it is catchy, and it's no wonder that it became the infernal earworm that drove me crazy for days.
Now it's your turn. Try it. But only "if ya wanna."
Monday, July 15, 2013
Today's earworm is actually not mine but my wife's. (I have one, of course, but it's one that I get a lot and have little to say about. Okay, if you must know, it's Afternoon Delight. Happy now? "Sky rockets in flight?"… You're welcome.)
Last night we saw the great Sir Paul McCartney in concert. There aren't enough superlatives to describe the show, and I'm not over-exaggerating when I say yowza. For two and a half hours, the 71-year old McCartney rocked his, his band's and our socks off. (And many in the audience were wearing sandals!)
Pulling from his vast catalog, both with the Fabs and Wings, as well as his enormous solo outings, McCartney played nearly forty songs. (Thirty-six, to be precise. Unless you count the Abbey Road medley as three songs, in which case the grand total was thirty-eight.) While he played a number of his "hits," he also pulled out a few deep tracks; songs that you'd never expect him to play. Those tunes, of course, are the most fun for we diehard fans. (But really, what track on any Beatle album could be considered a deep cut anyway?)
So, here's a play-by-play of what McCartney and his band played. Keep in mind that there are a few surprises, and if you have tickets for an upcoming show, and want to keep the McCartney magic intact (which I very much suggest), then click away from this post! I know it'll be hard, leaving this compelling and riveting (and other synonyms) blog. In fact, it may be too hard. Forget it. Forget my suggestion to leave the post. Just after reading, remember to forget to remember. That way, after you've seen Macca, you can return and re-read the post as if you've never seen it before. A twofer as it were.
Read on MacDuff….
The pre-game show is quite odd in that it is a DJ playing Beatle/McCartney tunes, mostly done by others, but some by the boys' themselves, mashed together with an annoying thumping bass beat that overwhelms everything. And believe me, as bass is one sound I can still hear with both ears, it was maddening.
Ah, but then the lights dimmed, and the audience cheered--or more accurately roared, as Sir Paul and his band made it to the stage. And very soon the sounds of a very familiar guitar line faded in….
(Credit MJ KIM/MPL Communications)
1. "Eight Days a Week" -- One of two songs that Paul did which was originally sung by John. Sounded great, but everyone (and I do mean everyone, including yours truly) were busy fumbling with our smart phones, trying to take a picture just to prove we were there, in the same room as a Beatle, that the song was over before being totally noticed.
2. "Junior's Farm" -- Pretty interesting choice for the second song. Yes, it was a single and all, and while I really like it, it was hardly a smash hit. It was last night, though.
3. "All My Loving" -- Beatle Paul singing a Beatle Paul song only as Beatle Paul could.
4. "Listen to What the Man Said" -- If you want to know how Paul's singing was, he sang the falsetto "the wonder of it all, baby" bit as if, well, as if her were Paul-freaking-McCartney.
5. "Let Me Roll It" -- Me thinks Big Mac likes to play this song. He's done it, I think, on every tour since Wings Over America way back in 1976. He and his awesome band certainly tear into the solos. His band is truly amazing. McCartney knows that the fans want to hear every note played the same as on the album, and these guys oblige as probably the greatest Beatle cover band ever. But you can sometimes tell that they are itching to break free, just a little, and on a few tunes, Mac and the guys let loose. Let Me Roll It is one of those tunes, which has an added coda of the Jimi Hendrix classic, Foxy Lady. Jam on. (I bet soundcheck is awesome. To be a fly on the wall…)
6. "Paperback Writer" -- Great song, with a double-take attached as Paul adds a guitar solo.
7. "My Valentine" -- From Paul's standard's album, Kisses on the Bottom. Written for his wife (who was present at the show), it clearly doesn't fit with the rest of the set, but I rather like the song. The chord changes are unusual, and the melody, naturally, is catchy. (It is, after all, a McCartney tune.)
8. "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five" -- "This one is for the Wings fans." Indeed! As a Wings fan I couldn't have been happier with this selection. (But Paul, please, next time--and there will be a next time--play something from Ram.)
9. "The Long and Winding Road" --Admittedly not a particular favorite of mine, mainly because I don't like the production done on the album. Paul, also on record as not liking the strings added to his song, adds them (via keyboard) here, too. Keeping with the "sounds just like the album" philosophy, I suppose.
10. "Maybe I'm Amazed" --Dedicated to Linda. An obvious single from the McCartney album, but wasn't released as one. (A live version from Wings Over America was released as a single, and was a big hit as I recall.) What can I say. Love the song. Particular the guitar line.
11. "I've Just seen a Face" --One of those Beatle songs that I can listen to again and again. (Who am I kidding, all of the Beatle songs I can listen to again and again. Yes, including Revolution #9. "Take this brother, may it serve you well.") Unfortunately I was distracted by two "youngsters" sitting in front of us who were more interested in drinking than listening to a song from side two of the Help! LP. Help! indeed!
12. "We Can Work It Out" -- "Life is very short and there's no time…" to pay attention to two knuckle-heads spilling beer.
13. "Another Day" --This song is better than it's reputation. (Made, I suppose, from Lennon's How Do You Sleep.) I've always liked it anyway.
14. "And I Love Her" --The opening acoustic guitar run made my wife beam. 'Nuff said.
15. "Blackbird" --After playing it , Paul asks if any guitar players out there have tried to play it. The joke is, we all have. "You're mostly not playing it right." Cheeky Paul.
16. "Here Today" --Difficult song, still, for me to listen to.
17. "Your Mother Should Know" -- You kind of forget how much fun some of these songs are.
18. "Lady Madonna" -- This is another song that Paul plays often. And why the heck not?
19. "All Together Now" -- Okay, so I love this song. Sue me. "That was one of my more intellectually challenging songs." Says Paul.
20. "Lovely Rita" --Paul on a twelve string. Who woulda thought this song would rock so much?
21. "Mrs. Vandebilt" --With the "ho hey ho" chorus it's a surefire crowd pleasure.
22. "Eleanor Rigby" -- It's amazing how keyboards can sound like a string quartet. (Courtesy of Paul "Wix" Wickens, who plays any number of instruments. Go ahead, pick a number. He plays at least that many.)
23. "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" -- The other "John" song that Paul sang. How great is it to pull out these songs that were never meant to be played live, and play them live?
24. "Something" -- The uke comes out and you know it's Something. Loved the way the band crashed in for the solo and Paul swaps the uke for a guitar to finish the song.
25. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" -- Another crowd pleaser. How could it not be?
26. "Band on the Run" -- I honestly didn't expect him to play this. Glad I was wrong.
27. "Back in the U.S.S.R." -- Great song, great story from McCartney. A "Free Pussy Riot" slide projected as the band rocks. Priceless.
28. "Let It Be" -- I guess because the Fabs have two different guitar solos on their releases (single and album), guitar player Rusty Anderson wails on his own solo.
29. "Live and Let Die" -- Great, but bittersweet. You know the show is nearing the end. (In this case, literally.)
More pyrotechnics than usual. The older gentlemen sitting next to my wife actually looked up from playing mine sweeper on his phone.
30. "Hey Jude" -- See? Told ya. You know the audience singing the "na na na has" means the show proper is done.
----Encore 1---
31. "Day Tripper" --Ah, the sweet sound of that awesome riff. Hard to beat.
32. "Hi Hi Hi" -- Okay, didn't expect this one and boy did Paul and the guys rock it for all it's worth.
33. "I Saw Her Standing There" -- Paul does the count in!
----Encore 2----
34. "Yesterday" -- Of course. Wix provides the strings.
35. "Helter Skelter" -- Now that's programing! Yesterday to Helter Skelter! Man did it rock!
36. "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" -- Paul, Rusty and the other guitar (and bass) player, Brian Ray, trade wild solos during The End. They look like they are having a blast. I hope so. I was.
(I haven't mentioned drummer/percussionist Abe Laboriel, Jr. who was so much fun to watch. No question he was having a great time. Great drummer…and singer too!)
Phew!
So, my wife's earworm? Well it's not surprising, and not so bad as earworms go. (Hey, it could be Afternoon Delight). But even so, I still got the stink eye this morning. Ah well, "there's only one way to go out!"
I've tried many a time, but I just can't seem to get into the Dead. I've got several of their albums, including so-called "essentials" as American Beauty and Workingman's Dead, and, while they are certainly not bad, they leave me with a profound feeling of "meh." I've also tried several different variations on their "greatest hits" collections, and still can't see what the big deal is.
It fascinates me, particularly being such a fan of music in general, and rock and roll in particular, that I just don't understand the utter commitment many, if not most of the Dead's fans had made to the group. Following the band on their tours, swapping and collecting literally hundreds, if not thousands of legal bootlegs, knowing what songs were played when and where, and then also knowing which versions were the best; it's just mind boggling.
I do understand fanaticism, I have that with The Beatles and PJ Harvey, among others.
(There is really no reason to post a photo of PJ. But there's also no reason not to.)
But I just don't get the Dead. And that's why it's particularly odd that the Dead make my Earworm playlist with some regularity. Over night, briefly waking to accommodate my cat Nick's insistence on getting under the covers, the Dead were front and center and the tune, or rather the phrase, was there, still, when I got up this morning. Why this song? Why this phrase? Why am I washing the cereal bowl while singing and doing the Hustle?
"Well, well, well, you can never tell…"
It's Disco Dead...
Friday, June 28, 2013
Boy is this morning's earworm a tough one to figure out. I haven't been up on pop music for awhile, especially pop music featuring boy bands. (And I'm pretty sure that's a good thing.) Fortunately this earworm didn't feature a boy band, but it was most assuredly pop. All I have, running around and around in my head, is a distinctly filtered young woman saying/singing "if ya wanna."
If ya wanna? What the…. Seriously, how fair is it that my friggin' earworm fills my head with "if ya wanna" sung/said by a female pop star. And exactly how many female pop stars are there anyway? Lots, I know. Or at least I believe. I know two: Christine Aguilera and Britney. Wait! Taylor Swift. I know her too. (And let's face it, despite all the CMA awards, Taylor's as much a country singer as Maria Carey is.) Which now means I also know Mariah Carey, too. (Much to my chagrin. I can't stand the multi-octave thing.)
(While I don't know much current pop, I'm relieved to find that the artists are relying on their talents.)
(See previous caption. Are you even reading the captions? Get your eyes off their talents!)
Okay, so I know more than a few female pop singers, but, with the exception of Madonna (Madonna! I also know Madonna), if I were challenged to match a voice with a name, I'd simply embarrass myself.
There was a time, and it doesn't seem as long ago as it actually is, where I was quite up to date on the happenings of the music scene. (In other words, I was "hip, man"). Coming of age in the seventies, art wise (meaning film and music) was pretty great. Radio, both AM and FM, had pretty open formats in regards to the tunes they played. It was not unheard of, indeed it was the norm to hear some funk--let's say, The Theme From Shaft ("shut your mouth!")--followed by pop--how 'bout Love Will Keep Us Together--rock--let's jam to some Foghat with Slow Ride… Sinatra (Sinatra gets his own music genre) New York, New York; disco--Love to Love You Baby (I was twelve-years old when it was released. Talk about perfect timing); and even whatever category you would put the instrumental Popcorn in… You get my point. Back then, before radio stations collapsed into genre and even sub-genre formats, we were exposed to all kinds of music.
Including pop. (I'm trying to steer this back to the darn earworm. I may explore my diatribe on music/radio formats a bit further in later posts. "If ya wanna.")
Okay, it's starting to drive me nuts. Where is that from? And more importantly, how do I know it? ("If ya wanna.")
Off the bat, I know the Paul McCartney song If You Wanna (off his terrific Flaming Pie LP, er, CD) and The Ozark Mountain Daredevils tune If You Wanna Get To Heaven, but I'm 100% positive that neither of those songs has a filtered young woman's voice singing/saying "if ya wanna."
A quick Google search (how did we possibly live without Google?) tells me there is a song If You Wanna by a band called The Vaccines; there's a song called The Girl Next Door Salsoul Nugget (If U Wanna) by M&S; and any number of tunes that include "if you wanna" as part of the song's title, but none of them, sampled on Amazon, is the song driving me absolutely BONKERS! ("If ya wanna").
No sense in going on and wasting your time. I'll keep searching. (You better believe I will. Tinnitus is abysmal; earworms are horrible; not knowing what the damn song the earworm comes from, unacceptable.) I'll keep you posted. (Hey, a blogging joke. Get it? This is a post, and when I post the results of my search, it will literally be posted! [See? it's driving me N-U-T-S crazy!])
"If ya wanna," here's a great tune which includes that line.
It's a Long Way to the Top ("If You Wanna" Rock 'n Roll)
